Sell me on True20

[Von Ether]

Browsing True20, it looks like it's got promise. It's a lighter d20 without going overboard. For those who've run it, what's strengths, its weaknesses?

 

[Turanil]

-- Faster game.
-- Wounded characters suffer penalties to their actions (more realism compared to d20)
-- Much less books than D&D (unless one limits himself to the 3 core books)
-- Different feel, more like d20 modern, although you can simulate D&D archetype if you want.

 

[Nomad4life]

Strengths:

-Faster. Smoother. More cinematic. More freedom of what type of character you want to play. Rules are more consistant with one another, eliminating the “clunk” factor. Much less of that “wargamey/video-gamey feel.”

-Easy to port just about anything from any other D20 product into your setting. Want more sci-fi related feats? Grab some from Star Wars D20. Don't like the wealth system? Use the one from D&D. It's that easy.

-Preparation time has been reduced by more than half = More time playing the game instead of setting it up.

Weaknesses:

-New mechanics might initially seem intimidating to new players. (For example, HP and spells slots have been replaced with smoother M&M style save-mechanics. For players who have used HP for all their lives, this might seem like a radical change.)

-Although the game was designed as a “toolkit” system, this does mean that most of the work of putting a setting together then falls to the GM/players. Some might like that (I do.) Others won’t.

-The rulebook is a little confusing in some areas (especially to those not already familiar with M&M.) Fortunately, the True20 website helps a great deal in clearing things up.

-Combat can be far more grim and deadly at ANY level, especially if Conviction points are spent unwisely. In other words, that 10th level badass can still go down in one hit- Not likely, but possible. (Some may not like that. I love it.)


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Overall, if you’re looking for a solid toolkit system that can be used to run a wide variety of genres, but with minimal time spent pouring over rules, definitely look at True20.

 

[0-hr]

I think that a Damage Save instead of having hit points is the main point of culture shock for those coming from D&D. If you can accept the new paradigm, the rest is pretty easy.

 

[Von Ether]

I think that a Damage Save instead of having hit points is the main point of culture shock for those coming from D&D. If you can accept the new paradigm, the rest is pretty easy.

That is one thing I noticed with M&M and BESM d20. People are more willing to learn a whole book of "optional" rules to the point that they are essentially playing a differnet game as compared to "wasting time" learning a new game that has a much smaller page count.

My current tale of woe. I tried to get my "open minded" group to play a new game and they practically drove me off gaming with their insistance that the rules were "not right."

 

[Breakdaddy]

-- Faster game.
-- Wounded characters suffer penalties to their actions (more realism compared to d20)
-- Much less books than D&D (unless one limits himself to the 3 core books)
-- Different feel, more like d20 modern, although you can simulate D&D archetype if you want.

I agree with this completely. I think True20 has the flexibility to do more genres out of the box as well with less tweaking, although there are good D20 books out there for different genres that do the job admirably as well.

 

[jaerdaph]

Another strength of True20 - your existing d20 products aren't obsolete. You can easily port stuff over. There's even a d20 System conversion appendix.

 

[mcrow]

Well, first I would say that it is a good value..

The price is good for what you get

The mechanics a little bit more simple than D&D V3.5 but really not what I would call a lite system.

I like the wound track opposed to the way HP work in D&D.

I like the fact that you don't have to use minis to get maximum use out of the rules.

 

[Von Ether]

Sold!

Got my copy, liking it so far. It seems very flexilbe. Though modern day adventures without Adepts seem a little limiting.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm still reading through it.

Here are my initial thoughts.

What's everyone's thoughts on True 20?

I like the stat reduction. Bonus instead of stat scores. Makes sense. I’ve hated that –10 and then divide by 2 crap.

I like that strength doesn't effect to hit bonus. Never made sense to me.

I like that it's point buy for stats by default.

I like the way skills work. (No cross-class skills. Unless I'm misreading this.)

I like non-random hit points.

I like that death isn't something that happens when you hit -10 hit points and that there's no % roll to stabilize.

I like that you get a feat every level.

I don't like the overall limited number of feats.

I don't like the limited amount of adept powers. (Compare to the PHB. About 1/3rd of the core ruleset is spells.)

I don't like that there are only three classes. I think d20 Modern is a good idea in some ways but can see the appeal of going the Unearthed Arcana route.

Don't like the limited equipment selection.

Don't like, well, hate the wealth system.

Dislike the lack of multiple attacks at higher levels

Not too crazy about the stat increase coming in every six levels, but since it’s effectively a +2 from the old system…

Hate the reuse of art from various products including the d20 Modern screen.

Not crazy about bab effecting how difficult it is to hit you (unless I'm reading that wrong.)

Hate that combat can be leathal and that BAB adds to defense and that strength is used to parry (but since dexterity is used to dodge, what other option is there for it?)

When going for a 'generic' rule system, should've had much more feats and adept powers to represent the widest area of rules possible ala GURPS or Hero since they're trying to avoid the plethora of alternative core classes and PrCs which offer a wide diversity of abilities in and of themselves. I would’ve dropped all those alternative settings from the core book and scourged every d20 book GR has put out and made all those feats and class abilities made it into this book somehow.